Skelos blasts minimum wage but doesn’t kill increase

During a press conference announcing tax credits to help families pay for college, Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos blasted the Assembly Democrats’ proposal to raise the minimum wage by $1.25 an hour, but conspicuously refused to rule out some kind of increase this year.

“I’m just telling you that we will not pass the speaker’s bill. We’re not discussing minimum wage,” he said after rattling off a list of government programs that a family with two minimum wage earners would no longer find itself eligible for — including food stamps and subsidized health insurance.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, argued raising the minimum wage was a “moral issue” and a “matter of human dignity.”

“Our focus, in terms of a moral imperative, is creating jobs,” said Skelos. He suggested Silver’s motivations are political: “Maybe he just needs to do something that he thinks is progressive, but I think it’s regressive right now, as I’ve said. We have to make sure that our economy grows in the state.”